UPDATE: B.C. mayoral candidate who lost by 20,000 votes denied a recount

A candidate who finished a distant last in this month’s municipal election won’t get a recount.

Ray Farmere, who ran for mayor of the City of Nanaimo, applied to the courts for a judicial recount of the election results, butthe application has been dismissed. The case was in court in Nanaimo on Tuesday.

Farmere told the court that a viewing screen at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre seemed to show irregularities with hisvote count. He said there was a technical error.

“I saw on the screen that night about 20,000 for me and then it dropped to 7,000 and then it dropped to 365,” he said.

Farmere said he was told that the computer at the conference centre shut down at one point.

“But it took two minutes to change it. It takes longer than two minutes for a computer to come up. I’m a computer technician. It takes at least five minutes for a computer to come up,” he said. “But it is long enough to make some changes to thespreadsheet.”

Krog as well as City of Nanaimo chief election officer Sheila Gurrie both spoke in court today. Gurrie said Farmere’sapplication didn’t meet the threshold for an application for a recount.